Ticket To Write

When I got home from Saturday's game against Columbia and plopped my laptop down to start to write I found a souvenir left on my desk by that certain Hanover High School sophomore, who had been there with everyone else, thoroughly enjoying himself despite the rain. Getting back before I did, he took the ticket and stuck it in a little magnetic frame that was hanging around. He knew that the result was special not just for players, coaches, alumni and fans, but also for writers who can get worn out trying to figure out new ways to tell a tough story.

Funny thing is, we were talking on the way to Memorial Field Saturday about how many Dartmouth football games he's seen. My rough guess was at least 100 and perhaps a good number more than that. He saw virtually all of them – home and away– until at least age five or six because we'd travel to road games as a family when I was with the newspaper. (The Brown game took a little cajoling when he was a toddler; the Bear was a little scary.) Mom would be watching the kids during the games while I was in the press box, and then she would drive home while I wrote furiously on the laptop. When you work virtually every weekend of the school year as a sportswriter, you grab your family time how and when you can.

Once those certain two kids started playing on their own teams on weekends traveling together got a little tougher, but they still made periodic road trips, almost always to Brown because it was after their season, and to Princeton, where their cousins live close by. And they never missed a home game if possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the two of them have seen more Dartmouth football games over the past dozen years or so than just about anyone.

And don't get me started about how many basketball games they've been to in their young lives ;-)